Inspiring Women

Construction firms and major-project clients including HS2 Ltd have pledged to increase the number of women working in construction, to mark International Women’s Day (8 March). The £100bn rail project is among those that have signed up to work with non-profit advocacy group Women into Construction (WiC). HS2 said it…

Michelle Essen (left) is a managing associate and Sarah Wales-Canning is an associate in Womble Bond Dickinson’s Construction & Engineering Team Everybody knows that construction is a labour-intensive industry, involving dangerous work on muddy sites in the wind and rain, which is no place for a lady, right? Wrong. Views…

Sister publications Construction News and New Civil Engineer are joining forces this year to champion the role of women in construction and engineering. The two publications are marking International Women’s Day today with the announcement of their collaboration, called Inspiring Women in Construction and Engineering. The joint initiative builds on…

Loraine Martins, director of diversity and inclusion at one of the industry’s biggest clients, has spent more than a decade turning round the rail body's reputation on inclusivity. As she prepares to leave Network Rail, she tells Ian Weinfass about the progress she’s made and why there’s still a lot…

Finding protective clothing that fits is all too often a major challenge for women working in construction, as Tiya Thomas-Alexander reports

“I fell down a hole and water went straight into my wellies because [they] were so small – only halfway down my calf,” recalls self-employed bricklayer Darcie Richards. “Then it…

Our Inspiring Women in Construction conference discussed bringing smaller firms on board with diversity, the benefits of agile working, and ways to engage women and young people

Clients and tier ones are increasingly looking to their subcontractors to take affirmative action on equality and diversity. That message is one of the…

The rise of automation in the construction industry could lead to a widening skills gap, a leading consultant has warned. Arcadis UK director of workforce for the future Lara Potter said the built environment needs a new culture of upskilling to deal with the anticipated changes that automation could bring…

Nine new firms have signed up to Construction News’s initiative to help the sector become more welcoming to women. Earlier this year, CN launched the Inspiring Women in Construction Pledge, a code that companies can adopt to demonstrate their determination to promote gender equality. As well as a public statement of intent, the…

Demand for flexible working has grown in the wake of the pandemic, but does flexibility fit with construction, and can it ease the sector’s gender balance and skills issues? Lem Bingley reports from a recent CN roundtable

On the panel Kevin Bowsher, equality, diversity and inclusion lead at Mace Gillian…

The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) will attempt to draw up a universal standard of data collection for equality, diversity and inclusion information so companies in the sector can be compared against each other. The trade body said in a statement that a universal standard would provide firms with the data…